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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Misogyny And Misandry–Don’t They Have A Legitimate Place In Society?

Stereotypes exist, and by and large they are not hysterical inventions
but have at least a grain of truth in them. Women, because of their
centuries-long domination under male patriarchy, can indeed be uppity and
demanding on their way to the glass ceiling. Men, because of their hardwired
genetic configuration and years of public adulation and private obeisance, can
certainly dismissive of female concerns for truthfulness, family integrity, and
feelings.

The bitchy Devil Wears Prada female executive and the duck-hunting,
male-bonding philanderer are stereotypical images which may be exaggerated
versions of reality, but nonetheless both women and men alike
retain hardened perceptions of the opposite sex.

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This is not surprising. The war between men and women began in the
Pleistocene and continues today. Although women – and feminized men – may claim
citizenship in a post-sexualized world, nothing could be further from the
truth. Men are always suspicious of their wives and partners because the
political balance has been tipped in women’s favor, giving them a moral
authority and a political power which they – women – have up until recently
never have enjoyed. Women will never be convinced that the New Age Sensitive
Guy is really serious about his commitment to women, women’s rights, or
feminism.

Most women understand that human nature and X and Y chromosomes being what
they are, men will never change. They will always be skirt-chasers, womanizers,
and generous with the truth. They will construct a system of deception,
prevarication, and outright deceit to preserve and protect their right to
prowl.

Most men understand that women, regardless of feminist rhetoric are still
Daddy’s girls. Too few generations have passed to expunge all patriarchy and
male dominance; and the most savvy, if not most manipulative men take advantage
of women who will always defer to them.

Women understand that men will always be restive and dissatisfied with the
best of marital relationships. In the movie Moonstruck, the matriarch
of the Italian American clan asks her would-be paramour why men chase women. He
has no answer except that he can’t help it. Men, like wolves or tomcats are born
to roam. She says it is because men fear death more than women; and that sex
with younger women is the elixir of youth and longevity.

Whatever it is, women know that no matter how devoted and committed their
husbands might be, they will fall off the rails at a moment’s notice.

Men understand that today as well as in any previous generation, women are
hardwired to protect and defend the family unit they have chosen. They will do
all they can to prevent their mates from straying and will resort to the most
extreme measures to return them to the fold.

In Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Maggie will do
anything to ensure that her husband, Brick, will inherit the family fortune. “I
was born poor”, she says, “and raised poor; but I, as certain as the sun rises
in the morning I will never die poor.” She is willful, determined, and
absolutely destined to keeping Brick as a husband and to having children with
him despite his indifference and alcoholic melancholy.

Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra cares little for
Antony, considers herself superior to him, but plays and manipulates him in
order to secure her place and especially that of her children in the Empire.
The women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies are as protective as she-bears for their
children, and as cunning as any man in working the court to their advantage.

If anything, four decades of feminism have hardened, not softened male
perceptions of women. The most secular and progressive among them might back
campaigns for the civil rights of women and even speak out publicly in favor
of women’s rights; but the more conservative resent the political, financial,
and political preference given to women in hard times.

Socially conservative
men often feel that they have labored in the vineyards and fought in the
trenches to provide for themselves, their wives, and their families, and now
they are tossed into the dust bin as sexual supernumeraries.

The Father by August Strindberg expresses best the frustration of
men who sense the absolute control of women. Only a woman knows the father of
their children, and husbands will always wonder. Laura cruelly manipulates her
husband, The Captain, and drive him insane so that she can gain legal control of
her daughter. You have provided the rooster’s contribution, she says, and now
your duties, responsibilities, and privileges have come to an end.

Women now seem to have the upper hand. Physical strength counts for very little in
the battle of the sexes; and intellectual maturity, social savvy, and emotional
subtlety win the day. Men increasingly feel outmatched and outgunned.

Men, understanding that they have fewer cannon, are taking stock and
regrouping. Women’s belief in patriarchy, regardless of how quickly it is
becoming discredited, is still a point of vulnerability. There is still room
for the sexually confident, emotionally strong, and socially willful
male. Despite women’s absolute sexual authority (viz. parentage, paternity) and
increasing gender status, women still fall for potent rogues.

Since the War Between the Sexes is far from over and even farther from being
resolved, then sexual dynamics are still in play. An outgrowth of this healthy,
evolutionary and social struggle is sexual frustration, anger, and misogyny.

Is quite normal for American men in this election year (20016) to think of
Hillary Clinton as a dry, humorless, and desiccated bossy old woman. It is as
normal for women to think of Donald Trump as a typical male braggadocio,
pompous, strutting Chanticleer, arch-predator, and misogynist hater of
women.

Why are these feelings condemned? Why stifle and strangle what is in
everyone’s throats. I know of few men who have bought the feminist line lock,
stock, and barrel and who believe that subservience to women is the least they
can do as reparations for past male abuse. Most others, even the most
progressive of them, feel that for all women’s obvious intelligence and
ingenuity, they are still emotionally and genetically dependent on men. It
will take quite some time for them to prove their worthy comparison to
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams.

Women, no matter how much they will profess love and affection for their
husbands, are still in the business of corralling them, fencing them in, and
limiting their opportunities to prowl. It is normal for women to express their
frustration at men’ seeming intractability and inability to reform. There is no
harm in calling them ignorant pricks.

In other words, the war between the sexes would end far more quickly if the
gloves were taken off now and if bare-knuckle brawls replaced kindly skirmishes.
The same is true for race relations. No less animosity and hostility occurs
between the races than between the genders. Unless and until every racist,
hateful, and barbaric insult is thrown, rejected, and countered, nothing will
ever change. Internalized hatred is far worse than externalized frustration.

It has been argued that without the Geneva Convention, there would be fewer
wars; for no one would want to face absolute, amoral barbarity for doubtful
causes. The same is true for any other battle. It is far better to strip down
and face the enemy than make nice and then fight.

So there is indeed a place for misogyny, racism, and misandry. Stop the
parlor games and get real.